Toward lndigeneous Liberation:
The Sandinistas and the Miskito
of Northeastern Nicaragua
Patricia L Ballard
University of Wisconsin, Madison
The Sandinista analysis of the indigeneous ques-
tion is lucid, just and determined it also repre-
sents a new chapter in the protection of indig-
eneous and minority rights. What is necessary in
this critical period, both for the revolutionary
process and for the well-being and future of the
Miskito people, is an intense campaign of protest
in the United States and worldwide to put an end
to the United States using the indigeneous people
as cannon fodder.
Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz
he argument in defense of the Sandinistas’ policies
T
toward the Miskito peoples of Eastern Nicaragua
has had virtually no press in the United States.
Ironically, while the American Indian Movement has, in
general, been a vocal proponent of the revolutionary
dynamics set in motion by the triunfo with respect to their
southern counterparts, as has the International Treaty
Council (see the Appendix for the Central America
Resolution of the General Assembly), many U.S. p r e
gressives maintain attitudes which range from hostile to
ambiguous, reflecting in part this dearth of reliable, well
publicized information. Non-aligned coverage, as typical,
has failed to adequately conceptualize the historical
development of the indigeneous problem in Nicaragua.
Attention has been focused on the Miskito relocation,
which occurred as a result of escalating violence perpe-
trated by the Somocistas and backed by the Honduran and
U. S. governments. The nature of this violent conjuncture
has been distorted by the Reagan administration to appear
as an indigenist struggle against the Sandinistas. This is
precisely the line of the campaign being carried out by
Steadman Fagoth Muller, a known Somocista and former
MISURASATA’ leader who is conducting U.S. s u p
ported counter-revolutionary raids across the Honduran-
Nicaraguan border.
A more palatable position for U.S. progressives has
been that of a comfortable populism, typified by a recent
article by Mohawk and Davis ( 1982). According to this
position, the preservation and self-determinationof indig-
54
eneous communities and the integration of these popula-
tions into the national socialist project are dichotomous
goals. Therefore, policies of socialist integration are
suspect or condemnable, not for their content, but in
relation to an absolute ideal of national autonomy.
There is an immediate danger inherent in a populist/
indigenist position such as that espoused by Mohawk and
Davis. The core issues which must be clarified and
politically mediated to create the conditions for indig-
eneous liberation are precisely those which are dismissed
as ideological constructions contrived by the Sandinistas
to divert attention from the ‘real‘ issue of autonomy. The
substance of what ‘autonomy’ might actually be, and how
it is realistically achieved, necessarily incorporates sev-
eral concrete problems. Not the least ofthese are the ques-
tions of consciousness; of developing the material con-
ditions for, at minimum, self-sufficiency; and of forming
the political alliances, leadership, and organizations c a p
able of representing the indigeneous community. In addi-
tion, there is the national task of eliminatingthe vehicles of
cultural and ideological oppression and ignorance which
have repressed the indigeneous population and simul-
taneously suppressed popular culture and history. Only
by dismissing these issues and misrepresenting Miskito
history can these authors create the illusion of an integral
indigeneous community struggling en masse against a
socialist steamroller which would relegate them to mass
labor or museum pieces; only by ignoring the actual
socialist experience of the last decades in Africa, China,
and Southeast Asia can the authors oppose their model of
autonomy to a supposedly self-interested vulgar Marxism
and parallel Sandinista policies with those of the U.S.
toward its indigeneous peoples. Fundamentally, it seems
that what Mohawk and Davis really reject is any develop
ment theory whatsoever, and ‘integration’ is despised, per
se.
For the Sandinistas, however, a much more sophisti-
cated historical understanding of the conditions forming
“indigenismo” as an ideological and political expression of
concrete material circumstances is the necessary pre-
condition for a unitary project of liberation, where “inte-
gration does not mean assimilation, but creation of the
material conditions which permit (the indigeneous com-
munities) to maintain and develop their specificity, within
the process of revolutionary transformation of political-
economic and cultural conditions” (Ortega, 1982).
The basis of Mohawk and Davis’s naive populist
critique rests in the romantic idealization of the indig-
eneous community which, as Diaz-Polanco observed,
tends to “defend and conserve a system that capitalism has
already begun to effect profoundly. . . These societies
have not arrived in total ‘purity’ to the contemporary
world, but strictly speaking have been recreated by the
capitalist system” ( 1982). The Sandinistas are fully com-
mitted to ‘decolonization’, a process which implies the
liberation of indigeneous people both from imperialist
exploitation and from a colonialist and neecolonialist
political structure which oppressed and refunctionalized
these communities both from without and from within.
When this unitary project is artificially dichotomized, the
objectives may be distorted into a perspective which the
U. S. administration has adopted to achieve its own ends:
There is something more behind what the United
States’ State Department and the United Nations’
representative are attempting to do: it goes beyond
what is happening between the Miskito and the
Sandinista National Liberation Front in Nicara-
gua. In fact we feel it goes to an effort to try to
alienate the indigeneous peoples , . . from all other
progressive forces struggling for liberation (Bel-
lacourt, 1982)*.
While separatist sentiments have a long historical
rationale, such total autonomy as demanded by some
Miskito leaders (who want nearly half of Nicaragua’s ter-
ritory) would be antithetical to the interests of the Miskito
as a whole, amounting to a throwback to the days of
imperialist domination, or worse, considering the polar-
ization and U. S. militarization of the conflict across the
Nicaraguan-Honduran border. The triunfo of the FSLN,
on the other hand, presents the best possibility in Latin
America for an indigeneous people to achieve economic
dignity, total political participation, and cultural preserva-
tion, a possibility which began to take shape as a reality in
1979 with the implementation of policies unique in Latin
America, including ( l ) , dramatic improvements in the
material quality of life; (2), official recognition of local
languages and literacy campaigns conducted in them (in
large part by the indigeneous peoples themselves); (3),
plans to create an indigeneous university; and (4), the
declaration of the rights to “ownership of traditional
lands, to political participation, and to economic benefits”
(Dunbar Ortiz, 1982; DDP-JGRN, 1982).
The Miskito indians had struggled valiantly against
domination by the Hispanic/Mestizo elites of the Pacific
coast, and the first encounters with this historical reality
educated the initially over-zealous Sandinistas. A more
than cursory analysis of the development of Sandinista
55
praxis reveals deep self-criticism, maturation derived
from experience, and the continuing strength of will of
both the indigeneous peoples and the popular revolutiorr
ary movement participating in the difficult creation of a
new Nicaragua3
ylpa Bluefie
I -
- National cay,fa1
Provincialcaplrols
PanAnAmencaflH,ghwuy
Colonialism and Imperialism, Eastern and
Western Nicaragua
The roots of the indigenist separatist demands lie in
the dramatic historical divergence between the Pacific and
Atlantic regions of Nicaragua. The original Miskito
homeland was spread along 400 miles of the Atlantic
coast of Honduras and Nicaragua, and up the major
rivers: this homeland was split in 1960 along the COCO
River (constituting the Nicaraguan-Honduran border) by
the World Court, with the consent of Somoza and the
Honduran government. Although large numbers of M i s
kito were relocated, they neither participated nor were
consulted in the decision.
Between 1687 and 1894 the Miskito lived beneath a
manifestly British form of sovereignty, with their own
“king” established by the Crown, who “ruled” the British
sovereignty today base their legitimation in part on the
fierce Miskito resistance toward the Spanish, who exter-
minated, enslaved and forced religious conversion on
large numbers of the indigeneous population in the Pacific
region (where an estimated 400,000 indians were
captured and explorted as slaves-Radell, 1976). The
British successfully manipulated this resistance, trading
arms with the Miskito both to obtain raw materials and to
combat Spanish raids, and promised eventual autonomy.
protectorate (Floyd, 1967). The Miskito were the only
indigeneous peoples in Latin America subjected to colon-
ization through “Indirect Rule”, used so successfully by
Britain in many of her other colonies. Demands for
The Miskito became powerful enough themselves to
penetrate the territories of most other indigeneous groups.
Encouraged by the British, the Miskito enslaved neighbor-
ing tribes many of which, as a result of military subjugation,
cultural assimilation, and diseases introduced by the
colonizers, had their numbers significantly reduced, or
were even eliminated (CIDCA, 1982). The Miskito,
albeit no longer aboriginal, became and remain the
economically,politically, and demographically dominant
tribe in the region: number around 67,000 in Nicaragua;
together with the remaining indigeneous population (about
5,000 Sumu and 600 Rama) they now constitute around
2.7% of Nicaragua’s population (CIDCA, 1982; INEC,
1980).
ColonialiPt :ompetition for the produce of Nicara-
gua’s Atlantic coast (at first ignored by the Spaniards due
to hostile conditions and piracy) determined “diamet-
rically opposed trajectories” of colonialist political, econ-
omic and cultural domination of Nicaragua’s two coasts
(Bourgois, 1981). While the Spanish employed slave-like
indigeneous labor on large latifundias on the Pacific, the
British imported Negro slaves (from which the current
Creole population is descended) to work on the few planta-
tions that could be established in spite of Spanish raids.
On the Pacific, the Spanish exploited the labor of the
indigeneous people directly, whereas the British estab
lished trade relations with the indigeneous population,
who in turn gleaned the marketable resources of the Atlan-
tic coast to obtain goods from Europe and the Caribbean.
While the Miskito were systematically exploited
through relations with the Caribbean and world markets,
the Pacific population became chained to. an internal
market linked only indirectly to Europe. Nicaragua de-
clared its independence in 1821 and, under pressure from
the U. S., the British provisionally renounced its tem-
torial claims in the Treaty of Managua in 1860 (although
it was not until 1905 that the British fully renounced
territorial claims). While the Miskito retained semi-
autonomy in their newly created ‘Miskito Reserve’, this
autonomy was revoked in 1894 when the Miskito king was
deposed and the Department of Zelaya carved from the
eastern half of Nicaragua. Rather than establishing
hegemony in the Atlantic coast, the incipient oligarchic
state developed a purely formal presence and initiated
policies which increased ideological, political, cultural,
and economic disarticulation (Gurdian, 1982). The His-
panic-Mestizo government followed the course estab
lished by the Miskito kings and granted concessions to
U. S. and European companies which were eager to con-
tinue and increase the exploitation of mineral, fish and
timber resources using native labore4The U.S. govern-
ment had become increasingly interested in protecting its
economic and strategic interests, especially when it de-
cided to build an inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua.
Eastern and western Nicaragua alike became subjugated
to U. S. imperialist aspirations.
U. S. and European multinationals stepped in to fillthe
56
gap left by the British in its exploitative role with the
Miskito and other Atlantic ethnics. As a U. S . dominated
economic enclave, from the 1900’s on the Atlantic zone
suffered a “boom and bust” economy based upon the
vagaries of the world market for its natural resources.
Companies which organized large scale rubber and lum-
bering activities (mahogany and later, pine), mining( gold,
silver), banana plantations (i.e., United Fruit), and fish
ing (turtle and shrimp) held production or marketing
monopolies and ran company towns. At times, prices
(although exceedingly low to the direct producer) and
wages permitted relative prosperity for the Miskito,
especially during the banana era (1890-1930). But these
economic “booms” occurred only sporadically, and were
predicated upon tax-free exploitation of the Miskito’s
natural environment (Helm, 197 1 ; Nietschmann, 1973).
The pine forests were decimated, the turtles hunted nearly
to extinction, the banana crops devastated by hurricanes
and blights (Bourgois, 1981;Nietschmann, 197 3). When
these companies began abandoning their activities, the
Miskito were left both dependent on foreign markets and
facing a seriously degraded resource base: erosion, siltra-
tion and changes in river depth, extreme water pollution,
forest and animal extinction represent the hidden costs the
Miskito bear for intense capitalist exploitation (CIERA,
1981).
Under the U.S. backed Somoza regime (1 936-1979),
the Pacific coast was undergoing a transition from an
internally dominated market structure to integration in the
world market with subsequent development of the mini-
mal infrastructure requisite for exploitation (transport,
communications, finance bureaucracy). The Atlantic
coast remained almost totally isolated from the rest of the
country (i.e., not a single road connected the two coasts),
leaving the Miskito again to their peculiar semi-autonomy
in a state of impoverishment.
Transformation of Social Relations
Traditional Miskito social relations were profoundly
altered through the development of markets for their
resources and labor power. Both kinship systems of
exchange and subsistence agricultural production slowly
deteriorated as commodification of labor and products of
labor robbed these traditional relations of their signifi-
cance through competition. Increasingly, male labor was
devoted to the procurement of turtle, rubber, timber, and
skins, and, as protein staples became marketable, hunting
and fishing activities were directed away from satisfying
community needs (meaning both increasing scarcity and
commodification of the exchange of protein staples within
the community) and toward the satisfaction of an external
market Where primitive accumulation and mercantilist
relations gave way to systematic capitalist extraction of
resources, many Miskito men were recruited into the
lowest stratum of the labor force, where they performed
the most arduous and dangerous tasks for the lowest
wages (Ortega, 1982). Typically, this work involved both
spatial and temporal impermanence, rendering both s u b
sistence and wage activities insecure and vulnerable to the
dictates of the market for primary goods.
The penetration of market relations within the Miskito
communities themselves tended to break down reciprocal
exchange and extended family relationships, and in-
creased the need to generate marketable surpluses. The
Miskito focused on fewer and fewer marketable resources
at the same time that competition from foreign exploiters
increased. This meant both increasing cash crop produc-
tion through hired labor or greater exploitation of a now
reduced familial labor force, and diminishing returns to
hunting and fishing activities (Nietschmann, 1973). In-
creasing individuation, class stratification, and the devel-
opment of a functionally dualistic economy were the
social consequences. Disruption in the availability and
temporal distribution of labor, coupled with shorter fal-
lows, diminishing crop yields, and the overexploitation of
animal resources diminished the capacity of the Miskito to
generate surpluses at the same time that the need for cash
increased. Given the limits to exploitation of familial
labor and the humid tropical ecosystem, the Miskito were
led “up an ecological blind alley” (Nietschmann, 1973). In
this sense, the Miskito’s experience parallels those of
many other indigeneous peoples and the peasantry under
capitalist development.
The Moravian church, which missionized the Atlantic
coast, systematically restructured traditional ideology,
culture, and politics in accordance with changing rela-
tions of production. It promoted an ideology which stimu-
lated a market for foreign goods (i.e., utensils, clothing
metal implements), infused protestant mores of work and
discipline, and developed and consolidated ties with
Europe and the U.S. In effect, the church ideologically
facilitated the transformation of the traditional economy
to dependent status even while it attempted to shield the
Miskito from the most immediate effects of the deepening
contradictions of racist, class, and imperialist domination
(CIERA, 1981). The fact that to be Miskito is nearly
synonymous with being Moravian attests to the signifi-
cance of this role: “the church gains ideological and
political strength in times of crisis due to its political and
economic resources” (Gurdian, 1982). The church’s
position, however, was almost always paternalistic, and in
times of economic crisis, the “poor were dependent on the
church for everything. But there were never enough
resources. When church officials could give them out,
they were the ‘good people’ (Synonymous with the ‘white
people’)”( Hartman, 1983).
The Sandinistas stress the uniqueness of the dual
phenomena of indirect rule by the British and the failure of
subsequent Hispanic and Mestizo states to establish ter-
ritorial hegemony due to their internal weaknesses, exem-
plified by Liberal-Conservative rivalries which led to
almost continuous civil war, in which the U. S. militarily
57
intervened on several occasions. On the Atlantic coast,
the Moravian church, along with the transnationals, “took
the place of the state.” Somoza exercised “ a mild form of
dictatorship,” but “there was no strong contradiction
between his regime and the relative autonomy of this
enclave” (Gurdian, 1982; Ortega, 1982). Miskito com-
munity power had evolved from a system of traditional
village headmen which functioned mainly to arbitrate
disputes, to a form of caciquismo (clientelism) which gave
multiple powers to village heads who were easily manipu-
lated by the Moravian church, the transnationals, and the
Somocista bureaucrats (Helm, 1971;Dunbar Ortiz, 1982):
. . . traditional Miskito agents implement tradi-
tional Miskito customs, church regulations, and
government laws and also operate on at least three
of the four social levels-intravillage, intervillage
and village to state. . . Church agents implement
traditional Miskito customs as well as church regu-
lations. . . Most state-to-village and village-to-
state business is channeled through the headman,
and the state generally keeps out of village affairs
(Helm, 1971: 159-174).
The Triunfo and the Counter-revolutionaries
While the Pacific Indian mmmunities helped initiate the
insurrection against Somoza( such as the famous events at
Monimbo), the Miskito did not participate in the triunfo: at
most they heard about the fighting via radio. To them,
Sandino’s war against the U.S. Marines and imperialist
companies was the reason the banana plantations were
abandoned in the 1930’s (in reality due to world depression
and banana blights). With the victory of the FSLN, what
few foreign companies remained fled the coast. The Miskito
attitude toward the Spanish, (in essence, they identified all
people of the Pacific coast with the Spanish oppressors) had
been formed of a legacy of hostility and mistrust born of
the racist ideology of the colonizers. Racism, religious
rivalry, and distinct forms of domination made the Pacific
mentality alien to the Miskito, and the first FSLN
attempts to bring the triunfo to the Indians did little to alter
these image^.^
Within the first few months the Sandinistas learned a
great deal about the special conditions of the Atlantic
coast the distinctiveness of the environment (tropical
humid forest), the progressive as well as regressive
tendencies of the Moravian church, the seriousness of the
economic depression, the rich and proud cultural and
linguistic heritage of the distinct ethnic groups and their
determination to survive as such. Ethnic as well as class
and sexual liberation became intrinsic to the meaning of
the triunfo as a result of this new consciousness, both in
theory and in practice.
Immediately the contradictions of the decolonization
process gave rise to counter-revolutionary formations: the
organization created to represent the indigeneous people
in the Council of State, MISURASATA, incorporated
the old Miskito leadership replete with the caciques of the
Somocista period. The creation of a new political struo
ture meant that to attempt to incorporate the will and
interests of the indigeneous epoples in fact ave unprece
F
dented power to an old cadre of caciques who did not
hesitate to present themselves to their people as dictatorial
spokesman. Fagoth demanded a seat for himself on the
Junta Nacional, five seats in the Council of State, and
outlined a stategy for achievingthese ends called Plan 8 1:
“Plan 81 clearly revealed a manipulative approach to the
Miskito communities, calling for mass demonstrations
tions. . . on call, to support any demands he (Fagoth)
made” (Dunbar Ortiz, 1982). Alarmed at this bid for
dictatorial power, and armed with incontestible evidence
of Fagoth‘s work as a Somocista agent in the university
where he was responsible for numerous murder^,^ Fagoth,
along with a few other leaders, was jailed and later
released due to protest from the Miskito communities- all
events immediately prior to his now notorious and outrag-
eous performances in Washington. The remaining direc-
torate, in July of 1981, demanded political autonomy and
the right to secede-a move which was denounced not
only by the Sandinistas, but by the International Indian
Treaty Counil, which reaffirmed its support for the
Sandinista Revolution, both before and after visiting the
Atlantic coast (Bellacourt, 1982).
It is now well known that the counter-revolutionary
Miskito in Honduras, organized in a group led by Fagoth
called MISURA, receive the support of the CIA and the
Honduran government. Fagoth had purportedly already
made plans to invite German multinationals to continue
the exploitation of the coast.
In June of 1982, the Somocistas and the counter-
revolutionary forces (estimated in 1982 to include “more
than 2,000 active Misura combatants”) amassed along
the Honduran Nicaraguan border and made a series of
attacks intended to disrupt the third anniversary celebra-
tion of the triunfo and begin a major offensive against the
Sandinistas (In These Times, 1982). The offensive has
since increased, although the Miskito participation has
decreased substantially (Cordon, 1983). The efforts to
destabilize the region have, however, run into some snags:
the major recruitment camp at Mocoron has been re-
located away from the border in accordance with relief
agency guidelines; antagonistic factions have developed
within the anti-Sandinista organizations; the Honduran
military is running into problems of its own blatant mili-
tary corruption; there is no internal support for the
counter-revolutionaries within Nicaragua; and the Rea-
gan administration has encountered great opposition from
the American people, who see a gradual “Vietnamiza-
tion” of the covert war.
American Indian Movement leader Vernon Bella-
court likened the manipulation of the Miskito to the
recruitment of the mountain peoples of Viet Nam: other
parallels are the Kurds in Iraq, the Katanga in the Congo
58
and the Biatra in Nigeria (Dunbar Ortiz, 1982). While
conditions in the Nicaraguan settlements are reported as
excellent, those in the Honduran camps are dismal, even
according to Fagoth’s sympathizers (Bellacourt, 1982;
Grass, 1983; Chicago Tribune Magmine, 1982):
One can only appreciate what they have (in the
Nicaraguan settlements) knowing how they lived
in the Rio Coco. If Somoza wanted to punish
people, he sent them there. There were yearly
floods, and the International Red Cross was sent
in. There was other international aid earmarked,
but it never got to the Miskito. Santa Maria, a
large settlement that was near Puerto Cabezas,
was completely deforested, a desert of dust The
only medical clinics were in Waspaum, three to
four days’ travel. Once or twice a year doctors
went to the villages, but even in the town the
average life expectancy was 40 years. Often there
were no teachers for the schools, and in any case,
it was impossible to go during the nine-month
rainy season. Even in comparison to the campe-
sinos the Miskito were impoverished (Hartman,
1983).
The Sandinista interpretation of these events is un-
equivocal
One group of indigeneous people is now under-
going military training in Honduras and carrying
out propaganda campaigns in communities along
the Rio Coco River (i.e., “The communist-
atheists take away property and freedom”). Mis-
kito people are terrified of the future. Imperialist
forces believe that it will be easy to take advan-
tage of the problems created by Fagoth and his
friends to turn our Atlantic coast into a blood-
bath, to pit brothers against brothers, Miskito
against Miskito, indigeneous peoples against in-
digeneous peoples (Ramirez, 1981b). (Interior
quotation from a ‘15th of September’ radio
broadcast.)
The Sandinista Program
The Sandinistas reject simple formulas equating racist
with class oppression, religion with regressive politics, or
cultural homogeneity with popular unity. They also con-
sciously avoid what they term a“princip1e deviation of the
currents which pretend Marxist affiliation. . . strict econ-
omism,” in the analysis of indigeneous social relations:
This economic reductionism underestimates the
capacity of ethnic minorities to resist the homog-
enizing tendency of the system and over-empha-
sizes the factor of class without giving import-
ance, in the terrain of political struggle, to these
aspects of ethnic oppression nor to the specifics
of minority exploitation” (Ortega, 1982).
According to the Sandinistas, indigeneous groups, with
their own dynamic forms of organization and culture, can
not simply be classified as pre-capitalist, nor as prole-
tarian or semi-proletarian in a capitalist context, as the
latter “does not mean, mechanically, the loss of their
ethnicity nor the end of the preservation of the same
through the necessary transformations or adaptations”
(Ibid ).8
The ability of an ethnic community to become a nation
(not to be equated with the state) is dependent upon
rupturing the particular logic of capitalist domination.
Indigeneous structure, based upon lineage and division of
labor by sex and age, “plays an important role in the
means by which the market and the form of subordinating
labor to capital does not destroy antecedent relations but
refunctionalizes them.” This refunctionalization trun-
cates the possibility for conversion of a minority into a
nation, a process which can only occur when “modern
states regroup these minorities into larger entities forging
complex and distinct social groupings, when the bond of
lineage is not read as a primordial organizor and when
they have created major institutions. . .” (Ibid.).
The problems the Sandinistas face in bringing the
revolution to fruition in accordance with their sophisti-
cated theoretical perspective are prodigious. Above all,
the Atlantic coast is still a war zone and as long as the
Reagan administration remains adamant in its attempts to
destabilize Nicaragua, the Sandinistas must devote enor-
mous resources just to help the Miskito avoid decimation.
Resources-both human and capital-are sparse, even
more so on the Atlantic coast due to extensive capital
flight, lack of basic services and infrastructure (education,
medical facilities, transport and communications net-
works) and the extremity of resource depletion and
environmental degradation under previous regimes. Still,
considering the hardships facing the Sandinistas and the
Miskito, very considerable efforts have gotten underway
to resolve the serious contradictions which have alienated
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the Miskito and the
popular state.
PoZiticaZ: The Sandinistas have realized that the political
structures inherited from colonialist and imperialist domi-
nation, both in the Pacific and the Atlantic, had to be
changed dramatically. The then existing political divisions
reflected the division of the country into small oligarchies
ruled from the cities-and, on the Atlantic coast, caciq-
ism0 predominated. In realizing that decentralization and
local autonomy in decision-making were necessary to
achieve the popular goals under local conditions, the
Sandinistas, in August of 1982, developed a new region-
alization of the country, including the creation of three
new departments out of the former single department of
Zelaya in the Atlantic zone, each with its own regional
government. Each new department is responsible for its
own development plans and has control of its own budget,
in coordination with national agencies. Multi-leveled
59
popular representative organizations advise and vote on
local and regional concerns. With this major develop
ment, the Sandinistas continue the project of decentral-
izing power and incorporating Atlantic coast organiza-
tions and representatives into all levels ofthe popular state
apparatus.
MISURASATA has been disbanded in favor of
organizations which more directly represent the indig-
eneous populations. According to Sister Hartman, a
member of the National Commission for the Promotion
and Protection of Human Rights, who worked in the
Miskito camps through December of 1982, the Miskito
there “don’t want to hear the word MISURASATA, nor
mention of Fagoth They say ‘don’t talk about him-he
has brought us much disgrace’ ” (Hartman, 1983). Within
the camps, there are none of the mass organizations of the
Pacific coast, such as Community Defense Committees,
since the Miskito felt they were an imposition Instead, the
Miskito themselves are entirely responsible for organiza
tion All major decisions are made in weekly meetings,
including such issues as whether production will be
cooperative or private, work assignments, discipline, etc.
The Sandinistas organize very little direct political educa-
tion: “They are not trying to convince the Miskito-the
Sandinistas feel their actions should speak for them
selves” (Hartman, 1983).
Cultural-Ideological: The Sandinistas admit their COD
cern with racist ideologies and religious discrimination
which have and still do permeate the nation’s ideological
fabric. Protestant-Catholic religious wars and doctrines of
superiority and backwardness applied by the previous
rulers provided the historical impetus, whereas the ex-
treme isolation of the Atlantic coast extended the barriers
to mutual understanding. The Sandinistas are attempting
to alleviate these “semiotic contradictions” by elevating
the people’s history, art, and culture to the status which it
deserves, and by introducing the majority of the popula-
tion to the language, arts and culture of the Atlantic coast
through all possible media. The preservation of the
Miskito, Rama, Sumu and Creole cultures is guaranteed
through literacy campaigns conducted in both the native
language and Spanish, and by the guarantee of the right
and means to religious freedom and cultural and artistic
expression. Radio and recordings, popular theater, people’s
museums, traveling artists, dance and music troupes all
serve both to preserve and disseminate the rich popular
heritage of the dominated classes and the racially oppressed
and to reduce racial and religious prejudices inherited
from centuries of bourgeois and imperialist domination
(Gurdian, 1982; DDP-JGRN, 1982).
Both the Moravian church and the Catholic church
have very progressive elements. “The identity of the
revolution does not have to be Hispanic or Catholic,” and
the Sandinistas not only acknowledge but as well consist
of progressive elements from both churches (Gurdian,
1982). The Moravian tradition is rooted in working with
minority populations and, as a heretical church itself, has
always stressed the need for recognition of minority lan-
guages and religions and participation in the dominant
power structure. Much of their ethos is anti-capitalist in
nature (although permeated with protestant ethics of work
and discipline they are opposed to accumulation and
emphasize brotherhood and the community over the indi-
vidual), and what educational and medical facilities as
existed were nearly always the Moravians’ accomplish
ments (Helm, 197 1). The progressive Moravian bishop,
John Wilson, has played a critical role in achieving
mutual support and understanding between the church
and the Sandinistas.
Economic: One area of tension between the Sandinistas
and the Miskito has been around the ownership and
control of the region’s resources. One of the first acts by
the Sandinistas was to grant legal ownership of traditional
lands to the indigeneous peoples, making these territories
their inviolable right. The old Miskito leadership also
demanded control and exclusive rights to benefits from
natural resource exploitation in the Atlantic zone. The
Sandinistas, however, have taken the position that those
resources are national resources and must be managed by
the popular state to insure rational exploitation. Millions
of cordobas must be invested in reforestation projects and
fisheries alone (including processing transport and com-
mercialization), investments which are far beyond the
capacities of the indigeneous communities, and these
activities must be well planned and coordinated to pre-
serve the ecological integrity of the Atlantic’s resource
base.
60
Still, the question of rights to use and control is yet to
be resolved-negotiations are ongoin2 as the Sandinistas
and the indigeneous peoples search for a long-term solu-
tion. The indigeneous peoples, unlike the Pacific peoples,
have had substantively distinct tenure arrangements not
approachable in the usual context of agrarian reform: they
were not, as were their Pacific counterparts, dispossessed
of their land or denied free access. Therefore, the altera-
tion of these rights means the Sandinistas must provide
superior alternatives, which so far has been precisely the
plan of action.
Within the new settlements, production is either
cooperative or private, depending on the decision of the
Miskito themselves, and usually is decided in accordance
with the traditions of the groups in the individual settle-
ments. Housing, education, health courses and clinics,
and technical assistance for farming have all been pro-
vided by the Sandinistas with the objective of training the
Miskito to eventually provide these services themselves.
Since November of 1982, the Miskito have been “off
government rationing and are now producing a surplus
which brings them cash-a major accomplishment” (Hart-
man, Ibid.). Subsistence production is supported through
free technical assistance, subsidies for inputs and guaran-
teed crop purchases, credit, and assistance in the develop
ment of cooperatives (Ramirez, 198 1 a; DDP-JGRN,
1982; Bourgois, 1981).
The Sandinistas’ non-exploitative programs for re-
gional development nationalized the mines, developed a
mineworkers’ union, raised wages, and instituted social
security for miners. Maritime resources have also been
nationalized, prices raised and guaranteed for the pro-
ducers, and a union established. Communities have the
right to a percentage of the income from forestry activi-
ties, which must be invested in community development.
The first road connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts
has been built, but is a focus for attacks by the counter-
revolutionaries. Transport and communications are much
improved, hospitals and clinics have been built, and the
provision of other basic services is also being implemented
Progress has been impressive, given the nearly complete
capitalist abandonment of the region, the decades of utter
neglect, and the continual ravages of war.
Human Rights
The Reagan administration has carried out a major
propagana campaign to discredit the Sandinistas through
allegations of human rights abuses. Accusations such as
those made by Fagoth in the A F L C I O Newsletter
(1982) are so baseless in fact that even Reagan did not
mention them in his address to the joint session of
Congress in April (New York Times, April 28, 1983).
Miskito counter-revolutionaries, however, are recruited
on the basis of such purported abuses as “The Sandinistas
eat babies.” Rather than assailing the Sandinistas for
relocating the Miskito population, attention should be
focusing on the new Honduran camp, where 10,000 to 12,000
Miskito are “living in a marsh, there is no drinking water,
and miserable conditions are maintained in order to
recruit and train Miskito as guerillas” (Hartman, 1983).
The Sandinistas invited international groups such as
the Red Cross to take a list ofthe people in the Nicaraguan
settlements to the Honduran camps to prove to the
Miskito that their families are alive and well. A proposal
was made to the Honduran government for a group of
Miskito chosen by their Honduran camp members to visit
the Nicaraguan settlements with full security assurance,
to witness conditions. Not only did the Honduran govern-
ment refuse this proposal; Miskitos who wish to return
even without such prior assurance are not allowed to by
their own leaders. Nor are Oxfam representatives, who
visit the camps every few months, allowed to talk freely
with the Miskito: the opposite is true in the Nicaraguan
settlements.
But the Sandinistas are fully capable of standing on
their own human rights record with regard to the Miskito.”
This author was escorted by the head of the corrections
system, Captain Raul Cordon, on a tour of the “prison”
where some of the Miskito counter-revolutionaries c a p
tured in the north are now living. The “prison”, started in
January 1983, is actually a 1,500 hectare cooperative
farm near Managua, where 200 Miskito, soon to be joined
by their families, will produce tobacco, basic grains and
vegetables, and fish from the reservoir next to their homes.
There is only one armed guard at the farm’s entrance, and
the person responsible for daily coordination is himself a
former Miskito counter-revolutionary.
The farm, one of four modeled after a tremendously
successful cooperative called “La Granja Abierta” for
former Somocista National Guard, represents the p r e
found humanitarianism of the Sandinistas. “The Miskito
are not mercenaries-they were recruited through fear, in
great part through the church. They were purely manipu-
lated‘’ (Cordon, 1983). The Miskito will be educated, as
in the settlements, first in Miskito and then Spanish, in
horticulture, mechanics, and carpentry. The farm is
intended to be a permanent settlement, for fear that the
Miskito, if returned to the north, would again be vulner-
able to manipulation. “YOUmust remember- there would
be no Miskito camp in Managua if there were no problem
on the border. The Sandinistas would let them go”
(Hartman, 1983).
Conclusion
Many major contradictions have not been resolved,
nor have possible negative repercussions involved in
MiskiteSandinista relations been entirely avoided. They
have, however, been recognized, and now condition the
entire process of debate, negotiation, and policy making.
The Sandinistas are attempting to: guide the develop
61
ment of popular indigeneous organizations without either
accepting caciquismo and imperialist influences or impos-
ing their own alien political structure; facilitate indigeneous
consciousness of the Atlantic’s historical development
without supplanting indigeneous identity with a homog-
enizing abstract moralism; restore and emphasize cultural,
artistic and religious expression as a basis for mutual
understanding and appreciation so that Nicaraguans are
unified in their concern and support for each other’s
specific struggles, while avoiding the tendency toward
reification (and its concomitant, paternalism); rationalize
indigeneous land rights and resource use to provide a
secure basis for reproduction and at the same time hold a
‘developmentalist’ logic in check; develop a unified politi-
cal will to confront the attempts to reconquer Nicaragua
without sacrificing the real opposition of wills and the
integrity of its many peoples which, through their dialec-
tical development, constitute the vital force of liberation.
Mohawk and Davis recognize these implicit tensions,
but in their idealization negate the very conditions and
processes by which liberation may be achieved. The
Miskito themselves must make the transition from depen-
dency upon foreign exploitation and exchange to the
enhancement of their own means of livelihood and needs
satisfaction. They have for the first time in their history
this real possibility, and the united force of an integrated
free Nicaragua behind them.
Those progressives who are deeply concerned for the
fate of indigeneous peoples must focus now upon the
critical determinants of minority oppression and liberation:
The main principles of the triunfenationalism,
anti-imperialism and popular democracy- wi 11
be made flesh and blood by the peoples of the
Atlantic zone as they participate in the revolu-
tionary process. This is not a populist attitude. . .
The contradiction is no longer internal-those
contradictions have become part of our whole
strategy. At this moment the external force
impinging upon the revolution is more important
than anything (Gurdian, 1982).
We must set the debate aright, unite in our commitment to
the principle that the peoples of Nicaragua have a right to
resolve their own contradictions, and oppose all overt and
clandestine efforts made by U. S. administrations and
their right-wing Central American allies to exploit these
internal struggles for the purpose of again subjugating
Nicaragua. Whatever labels we choose to refer to each
other, we are progressives and our struggles to defend the
rights of all Latin American peoples begins with our
unified opposition to policies that would negate those
rights- and those of other indigeneous people as well.
 Appendix: Central America Resolution of
the General Assembly of the
Ninth International Treaty Council
“The General Assembly of the Ninth International Treaty
Council and its mandated representation to the United
Nations, representing 98 Indian nations in the Western
Hemisphere, do declare:
“Whereas; being aware of the large Indian popula-
tion, many of them in the majority in Central America, in
particular Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and;
Whereas; reognizing that these Indian populations are
suffering mass genocide, massacres, land expropriation,
kidnappings, and torture at the hands of the repressive
regimes of Guatemala and El Salvador military govern-
ments who are being funded and supplied with weapons by
the United States Government under the Reagan Admin-
istration, and;
Whereas; further recognizing the role of the Israeli
government in arming and fundingthese repressive regimes
in Central America as a proxy of the United States
Government, particularly in Guatemala, Honduras, and
El Salvador, and;
Whereas; considering the logistical role which the
United States government and the Central Intelligence
Agency plays in the arming, financing, and training of the
contras (counter-revolutionaries),operating from the Hon-
duran and Costa Rican territories who have shed civilian
blood in the border regions of the sovereign nation of
Nicaragua, and
Whereas; also considering the U. S . Central Intelli-
gence Agency and the former National Guardsmen of
Anastasio Somoza have manipulatedmany Miskito Indians
in the border regions of Nicaragua and have used them as
“cannon fodder” in the United States’ efforts to over-
throw the government of Nicaragua, and causing separa-
tion of Indian families, death, torture, and kidnappings,
and;
Whereas; further considering that there is a group of
Indians in alliance with the United States government and
the Somocistas in bringing death and separation to the
Indian people of Nicaragua, and;
Whereas; remembering the Indian majority of Guate-
mala who are suffering at the hands of the military dicta-
torship of a General Efrain Rios Mott, who has directed a
campaign of genocide against the Indian peoples there,
causingthousands of deaths, destruction of Indian villages
and hundreds of thousands of refugees, and;
Whereas; noting the United States government’s s u p
port for the government of El Salvador which has used
military force, repression, terror, and murder to attempt to
defeat an insurrection of the majority in El Salvador who
struggle as a result of hunger and poverty;
Therefore be it resolved; to condemn the military and
financial support being given by the United States, Israel,
Chile, and Argentina governments to Guatemala and El
Salvador, besides the counter-revolutionaries operating
62
against the government of Nicaragua, and;
Be it further resolved to support the struggle of Indian
people in all forms against these repressive forces in
Central America, and;
Be it further resolved to support the allies of Indian
people in Central America also struggling against these
repressive forces, and;
Be it further resolved to give aid, comfort, and
sanctuary to any of our Indian brothers and sisters who are
refugees from the campaign of terror against them by the
Guatemalan and El Salvadoran governments, and;
Be it further resolved to call upon all friendly peoples
in both hemispheres to support the just struggles of Indian
people and their allies in Guatemala and El Salvador,
and;
Be it finally resolved to support the position paper
presented to the Ninth International Treaty Council by
the Indian representatives from Nicaragua attending,
including the Miskito, Sumu, and Caribe Indian nations.
NOTES
1. MISURASATA was an organization of the Sandinistas
and the Miskito, Sumu and Rama Indians which repre-
sented indigeneous populations at the national level (see
below, note 6 ) .
2. Contrary to Reagan administration reports, the Sandinista
military maneuvers are purely defensive, as was the reloca-
tion of Miskito living on the Rio COCO.Relocation is
standard procedure in these instances (as is now occumng
with Honduran Miskito refugee camps). (See NACLA,
“Guns of December”.)
3. Where available, analysis presented here is from Sandi-
nista sources. Heavily referenced is an interview COD
ducted by the author with Dr. Galio Gurdian, Director of
the Centro de Investigacion y Documentacion de la Costa
Atlantica( CIDCA). It is, however, impossible to do justice
to the depth and breadth of Sandinista social science and
programs around the issue in this brief space, and readers
are referred to the bibliography, in itself incomplete.
4. A major error of historical interpretation committed by
Mohawk and Davis is to characterize British-Miskito
relations as a “commercial and political alliance.” The
British imposition of a completely alien political structure
(the monarchy) is reinterpreted as British “recognition” of
Miskito kings. According to their interpretation, it does not
seem that Miskito autonomy was undermined until the
1890s, when the Spanish attempted to establish hegemony
in the region. They state: “Not only was the political
sovereignty of the Miskito undermined, but the aboriginal
lands of the Indians were invaded by large foreign-mainly
“Yankee”-mining, timber, and banana companies” (p.
29). They neglect to mention that the Miskito kings were
not passive in this process, but had actively established the
practice of granting concessions which Zelaya usurped and
extended
5. A young and perhaps overenthusiastic cadre of Sandinistas
naively attempted to bring the triunfo wholesale to the
Atlantic coast in the first few months. An example is the
 literacy campaign, at first conducted exclusively in Spanish,
which greatly offended the indigeneous people. The Sandi-
nistas are the first to point out their initial errors, a mutual
learning process: many of these errors have been corrected
and since that time, the Sandinistas have dedicated many
resources to improving scientific knowledge and mutual
understanding of these issues.
6. Mohawk and Davis again obfuscate reality when they
characterize the nature and purposes of ALPROMISU, the
indigeneous organization from which the Miskito leader-
ship of MISURASATA was largely drawn. They relate:
“In the early 1970’s, a group of Miskito and Sumo youths
formed an organization called Alpromiso to defend the land
and cultural rights of their people, against the policies of the
Somoza government” (p. 29). However, according to Mary
Helms, “the actual focus of such organizations probably lay
in missionary concern with linking the mission field with
higher-level groups such as the World Council ofchurches.
The angle used to achieve this was to identify ALPROMISU
as an indigeneous phenomenon” (cited in Adams, 1979:
18). This is reflected in the composition of its leadership:
“. . . most organizing activity was carried out by an assort-
ment of nonindigeneous actors-missionaries and technical
aid personnel were especially in evidence. The active indig-
eneous participation has principally involved village leaders,
often religious leaders. Thus, while the organization, ir-
respective of its conceptual origins, was a MiskiteSumu
organization, there is a very real question of what the depth
of feeling or commitment may have been among the average
villagers” (Adams, fbid :17). Hence, they obscure the
phenomena of caciquismo (even going so far as to charac-
terize Fagoth as a ‘dynamic leader‘) and continuing imper-
ialist designs as inheritances of internal Miskito political
structure.
7. Fagoth, a former student of Sister Mary Hartman, was
described by her as “very power hungry and dangerous. He
was seen like a God by the Miskito.” The evidence of
Fagoth’s involvement in numerous assassinations is p r e
vided by Somoza’s own records, where letters detailingwho
was to be assassinated were later published in La Barricada.
8. The Sandinistas, contrary to what Mohawk and Davis
claim, obviously do not argue that the Miskito are a dis-
integrated people. Neither do they simply subsume ethni-
city within a class framework however, they do locate the
Miskito social formation within its given historical frame-
work.
9. The fact that the land question has not yet been settled but is
still (after 4 years) under negotiation should give a good
indication that the Sandinistas are not orchestrating a ‘land
grab’ as Mohawk and Davis claim. Those authors also
refuse to acknowledge the resource depletion and degrada-
tion which occurred on the coast as a result of previous land
use practices, and hence ignore a major reason for Sandi-
nista involvement. Also, the Sandinistas are encouraging
the Miskito to decide on their own forms of productive
organization, cooperative or private, based upon traditional
practices.
10. Retaliation is completely absent from the Sandinista
philosophy. Counter-revolutionary Miskito are trained in a
regular military training center in Honduras. However, “the
Miskito are a hundred times more ferocious than the Som e
cista National Guard. During Red Christmas, compas
(Sandinistas) caught alive were hombly tortured, while
63
religious rituals were performed alongside. For these
Miskito, it is a religious crusade” (Hartman, 1983). In spite
of this, conditions on the Miskito farm, which the author
witnessed, are excellent, and religious services are still
wholly the option of the Miskito-the compound will
include churches.
REFERENCES
Adams, R, (1981): “The Dynamics of Societal Diversity:
Notes from Nicaragua for a Sociology of Survival.” American
Ethnologist, Vol. 8, No. 1, Feb. 1981. Washington, D.C.:
American Ethnological Society.
AFGCIO, (1982): “A Witness to Genocide.” by Steadman
Fagoth Muller. AFL-CZO Free Trade Union News, Vol. 37,
No. 3 (March).
Bellacourt, V. ( 1982): Personal transcription of lecture, “The
Miskito Indians and Nicaragua’s Revolution” Sponsored by
Community Action on Latin Amercia (CALA), Madison,
Wisconsin, April 13.
Bourgois, P. (1981): “Class, Ethnicity, andthe State Amongthe
Miskito Amerindians of Northeastern Nicaragua”Latin Amer-
ican Perspectives, Vol. VIII, No. 2: Spring.
Chicago Tribune Magazine, ( 1982): “A Strugglefor Survival.”
August 22.
CIERA, ( 1981): La Mosquitia en la revolucion. Centro de In-
vestigaciones y Estudios para la Reforma Agraria. Managua:
Coleccion Blas Real Espinales.
CIDCA, (1 982): Demografia costena: notas sobre la historia
demografia y poblacion actual de 10s grupos etnicos de la Costa
Atlantica Nicaraguense. Managua: Centro de Investigaciones y
Documentacion de la Costa Atlantica Nicaraguense, July.
Cordon, Raul, Captain, (1982): Interview with Captain Raul
Cordon, Chief of the Penetentiary Rehabilitation System.
Managua: April 14.
Diaz-Polanco, H, ( 1982): “Indigenismo, Populism and Marx-
ism.” Latin American Perspectives, Vol. IX, No. 2: Spring.
DDP-JGRN, (1982): Tasba Pri. Managua: Direccion de
Divulgacion y Prensa de la Junta de Gobierno de Reconstrue
cion Nacional (March).
Dunbar Ortiz, R (1 982): “The Miskito People, Ethnicity, and
the Atlantic Coast,” Nicaraguan Perspectives, No. 2, Winter,
Berkeley.
Floyd, T, (1967): The AngbSpanish Strugglefor Mosquitia
University of New Mexico Press.
Grass, Gunter, (1 983): “Superpower Backyards: Solidarity
with the Sandinists.” The Nation, March 12:300-303.
Gurdian, G., (1982): Interview with G. Gurdian, Director of the
Centro de Investigaciones y Documentacion de la Costa
Atlantica Managua: July.
Hartman, Mary, Sister, (1983): Interview with Sister Mary
Hartman (Order of St Inez) National Commission for the
Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Managua: April
1 C
LJ.
Helm, M. ( 1971 ): Asang: Adaptations to Culture Contact in a
Miskito Community. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
In These Times, (1982): “Miskitos Arm for Move on Nicara-
gua.” J. Evans and J. Epstein. Vol. 6, No. 4,Nov. 3-9.
INEC, (1980): “Poblacion de Nicaragua.” Boletin D e m e
grafico No. 1, 2nd Edition. Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y
Censos (November).
Mohawk, J. and S. Davis, (1982): “Revolutionary Contra-
dictions: Miskitos and Sandinistas in Nicaragua” In Ismaello
and Wright (eds.), Native Peoples in Struggle: Casesfrom the
Fourth Russell Tribunal and Other International Forums.
New York E.RI.N. Publications.
NACLA, (1982): “Central America-Guns of December?”
NACLA Report on the Americas. Vol. XVI, No. 5 , Sept-Oct.
New York Times, (1983): “President Reagan’s Address to
Joint Session of Congress on Central America.” April 28.
Nietschmann, B. ( 1973):Between Land and Water. New York
Seminar Press.
Ortega Her& M., (1982): “El conflict0 etnia-nacion en Nicara-
gua: una acercamiento teorico a la problematica de las minorias
etnicas de la Costa Atlantica” In Estado y clases sociales en
Nicaragua. I1 Congreso de la Asociacion Nicaraguense de
Cientificos Sociales(ANICA). Managua: Blas Real Espinales.
Radell, D. (1960): The Physical Geography of Western Nica-
ragua: The Spheres of Influence of Granada, and Managua,
1519-1965.” Report of field work carried out under ONR
Contract No. 3656(03), Project NR 388 067. Dept of Geog-
raphy, Univ. of California, Berkeley.
Ramierez Solarzano, W., (198 1a): “ Sobre la reforma agraria en
la Costa Atlantica” In Testimonios sobre la reforma agraria
I. Managua: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios de la Reforma
Agraria (CIERA).
~ - - - - (1981b):
, Document presented by W. Ramirez,
Head of the Nicaraguan Delegation at the U.N. Seminar on
Recourse Procedures and Other Forms of Protection Available
to Victims of Racial Discrimination. Held in Managua,
Nicaragua, Dec. 14-22.

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